In the fetid swamp of far-right politics, two names are infamous for having unleashed a torrent of particularly ludicrous stunts, lies, and scams.
Among other things, Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman have lobbed phony sexual misconduct claims at former FBI Director and Trump-era Special Counsel Robert Mueller, recruited a young Trump supporter to smear then-presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg as a rapist, and floated a preposterous tale that Sen. Elizabeth Warren was carrying on a kinky, BDSM-imbued extramarital affair with a 24-year-old soldier later found to have exaggerated his service record. In 2022, the hapless Wohl and Burkman pleaded guilty to felony charges that they targeted African-American voters with illegal robocalls to deter them from voting, and were fined more than $5 million.
Now, one of the pair’s targets is fighting back. A Marine veteran and attorney claims his life fell apart after Wohl and Burkman falsely tarred him in a 2021 video as a child sex predator, according to an $11 million racketeering lawsuit obtained by The Daily Beast.
In the aftermath, the unidentified Maryland man was let go from his law firm, lost a paid internship at Johns Hopkins University, was thrown out by his landlord, and forced him into bankruptcy, the lawsuit states. “John Doe” contends in the suit that Wohl and his co-defendant, soon-to-be-disbarred lawyer Jack Burkman, caused “irreparable harm” by laying waste to his reputation, wrecking his ability to earn a living, and turning him into a “critical casualty” of their “ongoing, illegal scheme.”
Emails and voicemails left for Wohl on Monday seeking comment went unanswered. Burkman responded to The Daily Beast’s request for comment with a phone call, but it soon became apparent that he had meant to dial someone else. Once he realized his mistake, the line abruptly disconnected. Burkman followed up with an email, saying, “Sorry, phone died, call you back thanks!” (He never called back.)
Doe’s attorney, John Flood, did not respond to multiple requests for comment. A Johns Hopkins spokesperson did not return a message sent late Monday afternoon.
The complaint in Doe’s case centers around “Predator D.C.,” a low-rent web series aping NBC’s venerable true crime show, To Catch a Predator.
“We are doing hard hitting investigative journalism to expose predators in the heart of our nation's capital,” Predator D.C.’s show page told prospective viewers, who were charged a minimum of $10 a month to tune in. “Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman conduct hidden-camera sting operations to expose predators who work within the highest levels of the U.S. Government.”
Doe, who had previously been married but was single at the time, matched with a 36-year-old mother in Gaithersburg who called herself Sarah, according to the lawsuit. The two spoke a few times by phone before making a date to meet in real life, but Doe “did not use sexual language in these communications, nor were any pictures exchanged or solicited,” the suit states. But, it goes on, “Sarah” was in fact one of numerous “false profiles of women” Wohl and Burkman created and placed on Tinder for their show.
When Doe showed up at Sarah’s tidy, two-story home on Aug. 29, 2021, he was greeted at the door by a woman he “believed was the woman he was expecting to meet (i.e., Sarah, age 36),” the lawsuit continues. The woman, whose real name is Anastasia, according to the lawsuit, invited Doe inside, which is when he immediately “realized that there were hidden cameras in the apartment,” it says, noting that as Sarah went upstairs, Wohl, Berkman, and some five other men surrounded him: one wore a tactical vest, another ballistic gloves, a third, armed with a handgun, blocked the front door.
“Thereafter, Defendants Wohl and Burkman—with cameras rolling and in a very aggressive manner—accused [Doe] of coming to the residence, intending to have sex with an underage teen,” claiming that “Sarah” was just 16, the lawsuit states. “In response, [Doe] explained repeatedly that he was coming to meet Sarah, age 36. After several minutes of heated discussion, [Doe] stated that he would call the police, because what they had done to him was wrong and illegal.”
Suddenly, Wohl and Berkman changed their tune, according to the suit.
“In response, realizing that [Doe] was telling them the truth and that they had engaged in wrongful and even potentially criminal conduct by entrapping him… Burkman reassured [Doe], stating as follows:
The man blocking the door stepped aside when Burkman said they wouldn’t use the footage if Doe promised not to report them to the cops, the lawsuit says. Doe did contact the police, but quickly declined to pursue charges “because of Defendant Burkman’s statement that they would not do anything with the footage if he did not go to the police, and also because he was not completely sure of their actual identity, which they refused to provide,” the suit states. Doe also contacted the FBI, which told him he had done nothing wrong, according to the suit.
However, Wohl and Burkman fully reneged on their end of the deal, according to Doe’s suit. On Feb. 16, 2022, a “Predator DC” episode titled, “Across the Border and Into a Teen,” featuring Doe, appeared on the pair’s YouTube channel, it says, adding that Wohl posted a press release to his website, announcing the video.
In the footage, which has since been taken offline, Wohl said, “Our nation’s capital is infested with deviants, perverts, and pedophiles of all stripes,” while showing Doe’s face, first name, occupation, and location, according to the lawsuit. It says the video referred to Doe as a lawyer and member of the D.C. bar, as well as being affiliated with Johns Hopkins, and that the audience was told that Doe ‘[came] to our sting house to have sex with an underage teen who he’s just met on Tinder.’”
The video also improperly described Doe as a married man, which the suit says Wohl believed “after seeing a photo of [Doe] online, in which [Doe] was wearing his Marine Corps dress blues with his wife at that time, who was African American,” the suit says. “However, [Doe] was no longer married at the time of the incident in question, on August 29, 2021, or subsequent thereto on February 16, 2022, when the video was publicized.”
At the end, Wohl and Burkman discussed the video “in a studio-type background,” and rattled off a laundry list of “false, defamatory statements” about Doe, the lawsuit says. The two addressed Doe directly, allegedly saying, among other things, “You disgust me, you disgust America,” “You will not stop us from exposing predators just like you,” and, “We will never stop in pursuit of the truth, and the truth is, that you are a pedophile, and you are a danger to society.”
Doe subsequently deleted his Tinder account, according to the suit.
“At no time did [Doe] ever communicate with a female associated with the incident of August 29, 2021, who was a minor,” it argues. “[Doe] is not a predator. He is not a pedophile. He is not a danger to society. He did not intend to prey upon an underage teen. He did not engage in any form of criminal conduct.”
In the fall of 2021, Doe was contacted by another “of-age woman” acting at the behest of Wohl and Burkman, the lawsuit claims. And that’s when things, surreally, took a turn for the worse.
“Hiding behind their falsely created identity, they requested personal information about [Doe’s] work, and [Doe] advised them that he had contacted the FBI,” the lawsuit states. “Thereafter, [Doe] suddenly lost his job at John’s Hopkins University, for no justifiable reason. Upon information and belief, this occurred because Defendants Wohl and Burkman contacted Johns Hopkins University and falsely told them that they had documentation of their employee engaging in illegal conduct.”
On May 23, 2022, Doe’s landlord told him he had to “immediately leave the apartment unit he had moved into just the day before,” according to the suit. “[Doe] later learned that this was due to the landlord seeing the video after the posting had become the third result on Google when [Doe’s] name was searched.”
Three weeks later, Doe was notified he was being dismissed from his job at a New York immigration law firm “due to an online post, now second in Google results when searching his name,” the lawsuit states. “They said they found the site from [Doe’s] prior landlord. It was not safe to return [to work] due to threats relating to the post.”
Doe says in the suit that “Wohl and/or Burkman also attempted to contact [his] former spouse (whom they knew was African American) in order to try and further damage [Doe], and also because she was a person of color.”
Further, the suit states, under Maryland law, “it is not a crime for an adult to have consensual sexual relations with a female who is 16 years of age or older… Defendants did not communicate this information when they defamed [Doe] through the YouTube video at issue, because they wanted viewers of the video to think that [Doe] was in fact a pedophile and a predator—which is not true.”
Doe finally went to court to get a protective order and force Wohl and Burkman to remove the video from the internet, spending about $30,000 in legal fees to do so, the lawsuit says.
The operation was funded by Burkman and his lobbying firm, paying to rent “Sarah’s” house on Aug. 29 and underwriting equipment and crew expenses, according to the lawsuit.
In addition to damage to his reputation, occupation, and “status as a former military officer,” Doe’s suit says he has also “suffered severe emotional trauma because of the Defendants’ wrongful conduct.” Along the way, it states, the bankruptcy demolished his credit, as well, which will “continue to damage his future professional opportunities as a lawyer.”
Doe is requesting a jury trial, an order for Wohl and Burkman not to further distribute the video in question, as well as compensatory and punitive damages of $10,794,000, plus attorney’s fees.
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